


Only Once

by asroarke



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Curses, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, POV Clarke, Witch Curses, everyone ships it, honestly it's a pretty happy fic with an emotional ending, this is a fic where bellarke dies but it's not until they've had a long happy life together i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 01:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13987179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asroarke/pseuds/asroarke
Summary: If Clarke could date, he was exactly who she would be going for. He’s smart, funny, a little too cute for his own good… He always managed to say the sarcastic thing that Clarke was already thinking. And he understood her curse, possibly even more than Wells did since he actually had one. He was sweet to her when he needed to be. He teased the hell out of her and loved to pick fights with her, but he knew when to be supportive. And when he praised her for something, she genuinely believed he meant every word.Bellamy Blake was exactly who she would want in a world where she wasn’t cursed… which was why she needed to steer clear of him.A Modern AU where Clarke Griffin has a curse. Anyone that she says the words "I love you" to will die. The only logical thing to do is to just swear off dating... or at least, that was the plan until Bellamy Blake walked into her life.





	Only Once

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know what this is. I've been working on this for a week now and I can't look at it anymore because I keep crying. Basically, I asked myself what would happen if Clarke never said she loved Bellamy, and somehow that question turned into an almost 10k fic where Clarke was given a curse where anyone that she says "I love you" to dies.
> 
> And this is where I remind you guys to read the tags. Both of them die at the end of this fic. It's not an unhappy ending though. It's a "they lived a long happy life together" and then chose to spend their last moments together. I totally cried writing that ending and while editing it. 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the angst. I'm gonna go cry again now.

“What is it like?” Clarke whispered, just drunk enough to let the question slip off her lips.

“What is what like?” Wells slurred, rolling his head to the side to look at her. The two of them were lying in the grass of his backyard, the only sounds coming from the party still raging on inside.

“Saying… those words,” Clarke stuttered out, careful not to say them herself. This was why she almost never got drunk. She couldn’t risk letting them slip… especially not to Wells.

“ _Oh_ ,” Wells muttered, his eyes looking guilty as he looked back at her. It had been years since Clarke accepted the curse, but she and Wells hardly ever spoke of it. She knew he felt guilty because he was the reason she was cursed. But as she has reminded him time and again, she would make the same decision every time. “I mean, saying ‘I love you’ is kind of scary,” he explained, a small grin forming on his face.

Clarke leaned closer, still a bit mad that Wells didn’t just tell Clarke that he and Raven had exchanged their “I love you’s” and instead she had to overhear it when he was on the phone with her. “Did you say it first or did she?” she asked, and his grin grew even bigger.

“I did,” he confessed with a small giggle, and Clarke couldn’t help but join in.

After their laughter settled down, a familiar pang found itself in Clarke’s chest. She would never know what it was like to tell someone she loved them. It wasn’t like that was some dramatic revelation. It was something she chose when she met with that witch all those years ago… begging for her to save Wells after that accident left him nearly dead on a hospital bed. She could save her friend, a friend that she loved more than anything, but she would never be able to tell him, or anyone else, that she loved them. If she ever slipped up, the person she said them to would die. The witch was very clear about that and Clarke was not about to test it, especially not after Wells’ recovery defied every doctor’s expectation. If that witch could bring her best friend back from the verge of death, Clarke was confident the other half of the deal would prove to be just as true.

“You know,” Wells whispered seriously, and Clarke tilted her head in his direction, “I know that you do love me, even if you can’t say it.”

Clarke pressed her lips together and turned her eyes back up to the stars. She wasn’t about to confirm that fact, scared that it would potentially count as her admitting she loved him. She remembered how Finn would always try to come up with loopholes, asking Clarke to write it down or spell it out with sign language, and Clarke would always refuse. It wasn’t worth the risk if she was wrong.

When things ended with Finn, Clarke was angry. But she wasn’t sure if she blamed him. After all, who would ever want to be with someone who could never say they loved you? That realization was probably why Clarke ended things so abruptly when Lexa came along. It didn’t matter how much Lexa would say she was okay with it, Clarke could still see the painful look in Lexa’s eyes when she said she loved Clarke and Clarke couldn’t say it back.

“I wish everyone saw it that way,” Clarke murmured, and she felt Wells reach over and take her hand.

“You will find someone else who will see it that way too. There are a million other ways to say those words. You just have to find someone who is better at listening for it.”

 

* * *

 

Clarke was groaning the whole ride in Raven’s car. “Quit it. We hate Finn, remember?” Raven quipped. Clarke swallowed, trying to get her mind off the save the date for Finn’s wedding that she got in the mail… but it was just haunting her.

“Right,” she grumbled, still not happy that Raven was dragging her to this party. “I’m over it anyway. It’s been years,” Clarke huffed. After all, Clarke had moved on, fallen for someone else, went through another breakup… so this Finn thing shouldn’t bother her.

“That’s the spirit!” Raven smirked as she pulled into Jasper’s driveway. She could hear the music as she opened her car door, wondering how the hell Jasper expected not to get a noise complaint tonight. Monty had put a drink in her hand almost as soon as she got in the door.

“You heard?” Clarke teased, before taking a sip.

“Nah. I got my save the date too. Figured you would need a drink after that,” Monty replied, and Clarke let out a huff.

“Wait, she is friends with Collins too?” the guy next to him asked, and Clarke bit her lip. She probably should know who this guy is. His freckled face seemed familiar, probably a regular guest at these parties over the years that Clarke had just never gotten around to talking to.

“Yeah, this is the ex,” Monty explained, and Clarke swears she saw a flash of recognition dance across the guy’s face.

“Hi, I’m Clarke,” she introduced awkwardly.

“Bellamy,” he replied, but he had a strange expression on his face that hadn’t left since Monty told him she was Finn’s ex…

“Octavia’s brother,” she realized, remembering Octavia mentioning his name a few times over the years. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“Wait, do I hear Clarke?” Jasper drunkenly shouted, and Clarke buried her face into Monty’s shoulder to keep from laughing too hard. “There she is!” he yelled, and Clarke looked up to see him sprinting up to her with a giddy expression on his face. “Where have you been?”

“I got here as fast as I could,” she replied, grinning as he pulled her in for a hug. “How are you doing, drunkie?”

“I am not drunk,” he clarified, hiccupping only once during the denial. “I am less than sober.”

“Okay,” Clarke replied, handing her drink back to Monty. “Hey, let’s get you some water, okay?” she said, wrapping her arm around his waist to start nudging him toward the kitchen.

“God, you are such a good friend. You know I love you, right?” Jasper grumbled, and Clarke bit down on her tongue, only nodding in response.

 

* * *

 

She kept running into that Bellamy guy over and over. Monty explained that he used to work two jobs, so he was never around for all the social stuff, but now he had more free time on his hands… which explained why Clarke seemed to see him at least once a week. It still didn’t explain why Bellamy acted so strange around her. He practically ran into his room when Clarke and Raven came over to hang out with Octavia, and it was getting hard for Clarke not to take it personally. He just didn’t like her, she figured. But still.

She had mastered avoiding him as a result. She kept herself busy at parties, making excuses any time the two of them ended up alone in a conversation. She mostly stuck to Raven and Harper, neither of whom were close enough to Bellamy to drag him into a conversation.

The plan to avoid him came to a screaming halt at Finn’s wedding… when both of them were stuck together at the singles table. None of their other friends landed there. Jasper brought Maya, Monty brought Harper, Raven brought Wells… leaving Bellamy and Clarke the awkward seventh and eighth wheels who got banished to the singles table in the stupid seating chart.

“You know, if we had just made each other our plus ones, we would have ended up at a table with all our friends,” Clarke muttered, and Bellamy started chuckling.

“Great. Like I need another reason for Finn Collins to hate me,” he smirked, and Clarke raised an eyebrow at him. As far as she knew, the two of them were friends. He knew Finn well enough to know Clarke as “the ex” so they had to be friends. “If I showed up here as his ex’s date to his wedding, I’m pretty sure he’d kill me with a stapler in my cubicle.”

A snort escaped Clarke and she quickly covered her mouth in embarrassment. A few other people at the table were giving her side glances, but all she could pay attention to was the way that Bellamy just erupted into laughter. “Stop,” she whined, giggling slightly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chuckled, putting his hands up defensively. She hit his shoulder, which only seemed to make him laugh harder. For a moment, she forgot where she was.

Then, she heard someone try to get everyone’s attention over the mics, and her stomach dropped. Right, she was at Finn Collins’ wedding… his wedding to a girl who could actually tell him that she loves him.

She zoned out during the toasts, a lot like she did during the ceremony itself. There were only so many times Clarke could grip Wells’ hand that hard before she broke it. It was just too hard to listen to Finn’s _wife_ tell him that she loved him in all the ways that Clarke never could.

When the toasts finally concluded, Clarke let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Dinner resumes, and she does her best to participate in the small talk at the singles table… struggling not to roll her eyes at one of Finn’s coworkers that kept hitting on Clarke. Clarke just needed to keep a sign on her at all times that read “does not date.”

“Hey, we’re about to take off,” Wells said, and Clarke pushed her chair back to stand up and hug him.

“Yeah, I’m probably going to go soon too,” Clarke sighed. She probably should have left a while ago, but she also wanted to convince everyone that she was completely fine.

“Okay, text me when you get home,” Raven said as she pulled Clarke in for a hug. “Love you.” Clarke made eye contact with Wells, who immediately flinched at Raven’s words. When Raven pulled back, the recognition of what she just said flashed across her eyes in a panic.

“You are such a good friend,” Clarke replied in the most reassuring tone she could muster, only feeling a dull pain at the fact that she couldn’t say that she loved her friend too. Raven relaxed, like she normally did when these things happened. It had only been a few months since Clarke told Raven about the curse, which meant she was still adjusting to it.

When they left, Clarke turned to see Bellamy giving her a strange look. As soon as she caught him, he whipped his head away with a confused look on his face. Clarke didn’t say anything to him once she sat down, instead focusing her attention on downing as much of this free wine as she could before she called a taxi.

But it started to bother Clarke that Bellamy fell back into his normal habit of being weird around her. “You okay?” she huffed, and he blinked a few times before looking back at her. His face was exactly the same as it was at that party when they first met, almost sad despite not knowing a damn thing about Clarke. It was almost exactly like how people looked at her when they first found out about…

“You know,” Clarke realized, clenching her eyes shut at the realization. He didn’t just know. He had known. That face started the _second_ Monty mentioned she was Finn’s ex… meaning Finn probably told the story to Bellamy and he put the pieces together. “Excuse me,” she mumbled as she pushed her chair back and grabbed her purse.

She doesn’t know what she expected to happen when she took off, but it certainly wasn’t Bellamy jogging after her. “Can I just…” he started to ask breathlessly, and Clarke raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s fine. Just… please don’t tell anyone,” she sighed. The last thing she needed was the rest of her friends’ pity. No one needed to know the real reason she and Finn didn’t work out, or why all the sudden she called things off with Lexa. She couldn’t deal with everyone looking at her the way Bellamy has been.

“So, it’s true?” he asked, and Clarke nodded… waiting for some kind of apology or condolences like she normally got… which always infuriated her. She chose to have this curse. She would choose it again every time as long as it meant that Wells lived. This wasn’t something that just happened to her. She actively chose it. Not being able to say that she loved someone was such a small price to pay in exchange for her not losing her best friend.

“Look, I’m gonna go,” she muttered.

“Wait, let me give you a ride,” he said, and Clarke let out a sigh.

“I’m getting a taxi,” she huffed, turning around again.

“I’m heading in your direction anyway,” Bellamy replied, and Clarke let out a groan. Even if she was adamant that she didn’t want the ride, she knew that eventually she would have to see Bellamy again and have to deal with the awkwardness of him knowing her secret… so she might as well get the awkwardness over with.

“Fine,” she mumbled, and Bellamy seemed surprised she gave in so easily.

The two of them walked in silence as he led her to his car. When they were both seated inside, she expected a series of questions to start rolling off Bellamy’s tongue. After all, most people had lots of questions. Sometimes they ask why she did it. Other times they just want to know the logistics of how it works.

But all Bellamy asked was if she still lived in the same apartment building that he dropped Octavia off at a few years ago.

The longer he went without asking her all the usual questions, the more Clarke started to squirm nervously in her seat. “Okay,” she huffed, deciding to get this out of the way now, “what exactly did Finn tell you?”

“To be fair, I don’t think he meant to tell me,” Bellamy sighed, keeping his eyes on the road. “For some reason, Miller invited him for drinks after work and it was around the time you two broke up I guess. I drove him home and he just started rambling about your… situation.”

Clarke clenched her eyes shut as she rested her head back. If Finn was just drunkenly talking to anyone about it, there could be a lot more people who knew about Clarke’s curse… and that thought made her stomach turn.

“I didn’t really register what he was saying since he was drunk,” Bellamy explained, and Clarke’s eyes snapped back open. “I thought I had forgotten all about it, and then Monty introduced you as his ex and that weird memory came flooding back.” Clarke bit her lip, remembering the strange way Bellamy looked at her when he heard who she was. “And then Jasper said he loved you and you didn’t say it back… which was odd.”

“So, you figured out Finn’s crazy story was true,” Clarke sighed, and Bellamy turned onto her street.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I mean, there are stranger curses out there, I’m sure.”

“Name one,” Clarke challenged as Bellamy pulled in front of her building. He blinked a few times, clearly trying to struggle with an answer.

“Well, that prince who got cursed to be a frog until some princess kissed him was pretty strange,” he shrugged.

“That’s just a fairytale. It isn’t true,” Clarke chuckled, throwing her head back.

“Hey, you don’t know that,” Bellamy said, and Clarke started roaring with laughter. “For all you know, all those fairytales are true. If curses are real, those stories could all be real.”

“You figured out I’m cursed and now all the sudden you’re an expert on curses?” Clarke teased, and he bit his lip.

“Look,” he finally said, turning to look at her, “I’m not going to tell anyone. I promise.” Clarke swallowed, suddenly remembering the strange situation she was in. Bellamy was basically a stranger… a stranger that was friends with all her friends and she’s seen around for years… but still a stranger. She wasn’t sure she could trust him with this… although, she didn’t really have a choice. He already knew.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, opening the car door.

 

* * *

 

Clarke wouldn’t say that she and Bellamy were friends or anything… or at least, not until a few run ins later. First was the gender reveal party that Jasper and Maya were throwing, at which Bellamy joined her in the back grumbling about what a ridiculous concept it was.

“God, and I have another one of these things to go to next month,” Clarke realized, throwing her head back. That was another present she had to get, on top of the present she would bring to the baby shower.

“At least there will be cake,” he teased, and an unexpected giggle escaped Clarke’s lips… earning a small glare from Wells. She ducked down in her seat, blushing in embarrassment. The second Wells turned around, Bellamy burst out laughing and Clarke elbowed him in the side.

The next time she saw him was at Monty’s Halloween party when she showed up dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood. She ducked out into the backyard the second Jasper pulled out the shot glasses, and she found Bellamy hiding out too.

“Don’t tell me you picked your costume based on how much skin you could show off,” Clarke teased, figuring he probably regretted the toga he had on with this chilly weather.

“Griffin, I will have you know that I am a history nerd and the fact that this costume shows off skin is just an added bonus,” he said with a wink, and she rolled her eyes. “At least I didn’t dress up as someone who got eaten by a wolf,” he smirked.

“At least I didn’t dress up as someone who got stabbed by his best friends,” she retorted, and a sly grin stayed on his face as he patted the step next to him. She plopped down beside him and the two of them fell back into their normal playful bickering… never once mentioning her curse.

Weeks later when Octavia asked her to help move, she figured that Bellamy would be around. She just didn’t realize that she and Bellamy were going to spend a majority of their day alone together.

“This is my fucking sweatshirt,” Bellamy grumbled, pulling out a balled-up piece of clothing from one of the boxes before throwing it toward his room.

“Maybe she wanted to keep it. You know, to remember you by,” Clarke teased, and Bellamy threw a piece of bubble wrap at her.

“She’s moving just ten minutes away,” he huffed, and Clarke checked her phone again. She had a missed call from Octavia, so she called her back and put it on speaker.

“Oh my God,” Octavia groaned, and Clarke caught the amused grin from Bellamy out of the corner of her eye. “We have been sitting at this light for _years_.” Clarke could hear Lincoln correcting her in the background and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Bellamy and I have gotten almost everything else packed up,” Clarke reassured. “That’s why you called, right?”

“Oh, no. I called because Lincoln introduced me to this girl named Niylah,” Octavia said excitedly, and Clarke threw her head back. She knew exactly where this was going. “I’m going to invite her to our housewarming party so you can meet her.”

“What did I say about trying to set me up?” Clarke grumbled, rolling her eyes in Bellamy’s direction.

“No, you don’t understand. She is just your type,” she argued.

“Octavia, I don’t date, remember?” Clarke huffed. She couldn’t really blame Octavia for this, though. She didn’t know the real reason Clarke didn’t date anymore, nor did Clarke really want to tell her.

It wasn’t like Clarke _never_ dated. She just never dated anyone she could have a future with. She would go on a date or two, hook up a few times, and move on. She just never wanted to be in a place where someone would expect her to say “I love you” ever again.

“God, you sound just like Bell,” she groaned, and Lincoln whispered something to her.

“I can fucking hear you,” Bellamy snapped, and Clarke pressed her lips together.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Clarke interrupted, trying to keep this from being yet another Blake sibling argument, “Bellamy and I are doing fine on packing. Don’t worry about rushing back here. Tell Lincoln to drive responsibly.”

“Okay, love you!” Octavia said before hanging up, and Clarke threw her head back. After a few seconds, she realized that the apartment was way too quiet. She tilted her head up, seeing that Bellamy was giving her a strange look.

“What?” she huffed.

“Nothing,” he mumbled, throwing himself back into packing up the box.

“Bellamy.”

“I just…” he started, furrowing his eyebrows together. “Okay, I have a question, but I feel like you’re going to get mad at me for asking.”

“I guarantee I’ve heard worse,” she smirked, leaning back against the couch.

“Do you get upset that you can’t say that back? Like just now with Octavia?” he asked, and Clarke pressed her lips together. No one ever asked her that question. Wells did, but it only came after a million other questions. No, most people wanted to know if she regretted it or what she planned to do when she fell in love with someone and couldn’t say it.

“Sometimes,” she sighed. “It’s easier now. Wells told me that the people I really care about know how I feel without me having to say the words… so I just kind of trust that it’s true and find other ways to say it without using the words.”

“Was Wells who you took the curse for?” he asked, and Clarke’s head whipped in his direction. She had never told him anything about that part, and she was pretty sure that wouldn’t have made it into Finn’s drunken ramblings on the subject.

“How do you know I wasn’t just born with this curse?” Clarke snapped, raising an eyebrow at him.

“That’s not how curses work,” Bellamy said as if that were basic common knowledge. She narrowed her eyes at him as he blinked a few times in confusion. Every other person that Clarke talked about curses with knew absolutely nothing on the subject. It wasn’t just something people could look up online and get straight forward answers. The only reason Clarke knew how they worked is because the witch explained it to her.

A curse was a trade. Clarke gave up being able to say “I love you” out loud for the rest of her life in exchange for Wells’ life. The witch explained that in some cases, people gave up their own lives in exchange for someone else’s. There were dozens of cases of people giving up senses or abilities in exchange for success in their professional lives. No one just was cursed for no reason… but not a lot of people knew that, even if they knew about curses.

“Bellamy, can I ask you a question?” she whispered, and his eyes narrowed back at her.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously, and Clarke bit her lip. If she was wrong, she was going to feel really stupid for asking… but it was the only explanation she could come up with for his behavior. After all, no one was this relaxed around Clarke after finding out about her curse. He didn’t go for the normal questions, he didn’t seem freaked out by it, and he knew what to look for when he first suspected it.

“Are you cursed too?” she murmured, watching him carefully as his jaw clenched. His eyes dropped to his hands in his lap, and Clarke had her answer. “Oh,” was all she managed to say, and he started nodding slowly. “I’ve never known anyone else who was before,” she admitted.

“Me neither,” he replied, and the two of them fell into a comfortable silence. She didn’t pester him with questions, although she was curious about how he ended up cursed. But he didn’t ask about what happened to her, so she wasn’t going to ask him either. All she knew was that he didn’t have the same kind of curse Clarke had. She had heard Bellamy say “I love you” to his sister too many times and she was still alive and well.

 

* * *

 

When she and Bellamy actually started being friends independent of their other friends, everyone had something to say about it. Octavia was convinced they were dating. Jasper was rooting for Octavia to be right. Wells was… protective. Raven was too. If Clarke had told Wells and Raven the real reason she and Bellamy had bonded so quickly, they probably wouldn’t be so protective. But Clarke was going to protect Bellamy’s secret, just like he kept hers.

And Bellamy was a good friend to have. He was always ready to roast Finn Collins, telling her stories that made her so happy she didn’t end up with him. He was always grumpy, but in a way that was fun to tease him about. It was the kind of friendship where Clarke could spend the entire night fighting with him and still be able to say it was a great night.

Over time, she found herself texting him more than her other friends. To be fair, Clarke wasn’t a big texter anyway. But she constantly found things online that Bellamy would find funny, or occasionally a wildly incorrect article that she would send him just to make his angry history nerd side flare up. Like today, she stumbled onto an article that started off by misspelling a Greek God’s name and immediately sent it to him… earning a _give me five minutes to type out all the reasons this pisses me off_ text from Bellamy that caused her to erupt into laughter.

“You sure there is nothing going on between you two?” Wells asked, and Clarke shoved her phone into her pocket.

“I don’t date,” Clarke reminded, and Wells rolled his eyes. “No, don’t do that. I have a perfectly good reason for why I don’t.”

“Not being able to say the words doesn’t mean you can’t feel them,” he grumbled, resting his head in his hand.

“I know that. But would you be okay if Raven never said that to you… you know, for the rest of your life?” Clarke huffed. Wells opened his mouth to argue and Clarke stuck her hand up to stop him. “Okay, bad example. You don’t count,” she teased, and he rolled his eyes. “Look, Finn could never make peace with it. And even though Lexa never said it, I know she didn’t either.”

“Yeah, but Bellamy doesn’t strike me as that kind of person. I think he would be more like me,” Wells argued, and Clarke bit her lip.

Even if she did have feelings for Bellamy, which she did not because he was just her friend, she knew that he didn’t date either… likely for similar reasons. He never opened up about his curse, and she would never ask. It wasn’t her business. If he wanted her to know what his curse was, he would tell her. But she knew from Octavia that he didn’t date anymore. He had one serious girlfriend that he broke up with a few years ago, and Octavia mentioned that it was a complicated situation.

“Well, Bellamy is just my friend. Besides, I don’t even really like dating in the first place,” Clarke deflected, and Wells took a loud slurp of his drink as he raised an eyebrow at her. Her phone buzzed, but she was not about to break eye contact with Wells to see what Bellamy replied with.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” he teased, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I’ll text whoever it is back later.”

“So, it’s not killing you to not know what your _friend_ texted you?” he teased, and Clarke leaned over and stole a fry from his plate.

“You’re a dick,” she snapped.

“And you’ve got a thing for Bellamy,” he smirked. When Clarke’s phone buzzed again, she could feel her cheeks go pink. “Don’t stress it. He’s got a thing for you too.”

“Shut up,” Clarke grumbled as she fished her phone out of her pocket.

 

* * *

 

“Want to explain why I got a text from Raven asking me to come deal with your ‘drunk ass’?” Bellamy teased as he slid next to her at the bar.

“I am not _drunk_ ,” Clarke corrected. She had only had two drinks, and they were watered down. “Ugh, I should not have told Raven where I was. And I’m serious. I’m not drunk at all.”

“Not yet,” he teased as he waved over the bartender. “I’ll be your drinking buddy if you tell me why you’re drinking on a week night.”

As soon as the bartender brought the next round of drinks, she told him about how some teenager pulled the fire alarm at the museum today and now her manager is cracking down to figure out how no one witnessed it happening. It was absolutely not Clarke’s job to deal with this kind of thing. Frankly, it was the teacher’s job to make sure her student actually stayed with the group. Clarke couldn’t keep a group of twenty-five kids engaged in a conversation about a painting and keep an eye out for any wondering kid who got bored. Besides, nothing got damaged today. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, just an inconvenience for everyone involved.

“I hate my job,” Clarke grumbled.

“No, you don’t. You hate your boss. You love the actual job,” Bellamy reminded, and she let out a sigh. He was right, of course. As far as day jobs go, this was a pretty great one. She had enough time off to work on her own paintings in between spending her days teaching others about art. “And you’re good at your job.”

“Okay, you don’t actually know if I’m good at my job,” she reminded, and he nudged her with his shoulder.

“Yeah, I do. You’ve talked my ear off about so many of the works there. If you are half as animated at work, I’d say you’re pretty damn good at what you do,” he said, and Clarke felt her face go warm at the compliment. To be honest, she was convinced he tuned out whenever she started ranting about art. Considering how much she talks about it and how little he actually cares about the subject, it was really sweet that he did listen as much as he did. “What?” he asked, and that was when Clarke realized how she was smiling at him.

She ducked her head quickly, the alcohol making it too easy to slip into thinking of Bellamy as anything more than a friend.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, of course not,” Clarke stuttered out before finishing off her drink. She needed to be a bit more careful with Bellamy. The occasional flirting was one thing, but maybe she shouldn’t spend too much alone time with him.

If Clarke could date, he was exactly who she would be going for. He’s smart, funny, a little too cute for his own good… He always managed to say the sarcastic thing that Clarke was already thinking. And he understood her curse, possibly even more than Wells did since he actually had one. He was sweet to her when he needed to be. He teased the hell out of her and loved to pick fights with her, but he knew when to be supportive. And when he praised her for something, she genuinely believed he meant every word.

Bellamy Blake was exactly who she would want in a world where she wasn’t cursed… which was why she needed to steer clear of him.

She signaled to the bartender that she was ready to close out her tab, deciding to go home before she started to fall even more for Bellamy. But then, he offered to walk her home… and she was terrified by how her heart flipped at that offer.

It didn’t help that he was doing that thing where he kept running his fingers through his hair the whole time they walked to her apartment building… or that his hand rested on her back as soon as she tripped on the sidewalk, and then it just stayed there. He did most of the talking, and Clarke would occasionally stutter out responses… but she had no idea what they were talking about. She couldn’t focus because Bellamy’s hand was just right there, he was smiling as he talked, and she didn’t want to say goodbye to him tonight because the second she did she knew she was going to have to start pulling away from him.

 

* * *

 

Clarke wasn’t sure how she ended up being Bellamy’s date to Murphy’s wedding… Well, no. Actually, she did. She zoned out while Octavia and Bellamy were talking about it, opting to read Wells’ lengthy text _about_ Bellamy. She had accidentally let it slip to Wells that maybe she was starting to have actual feelings for Bellamy, and he had just not let it go. When Octavia asked, “Wait, Clarke, you’re free on Saturday, right?” and Clarke stupidly answered yes, she got boxed into being Bellamy’s date so he wouldn’t be only groomsmen there alone. She could see the panic on Bellamy’s face at the suggestion, probably because he worried Clarke would be uncomfortable at the wedding. It wasn’t like Octavia knew about Clarke’s curse. If she had, she wouldn’t have dared to suggest it. There was a reason Bellamy didn’t ask her in the first place.

It really shouldn’t have been a big deal. A lot of her friends were there, even though she didn’t know Murphy or Emori all that well. Bellamy was busy during the actual ceremony… which meant she only had to deal with her feelings for him during the reception.

Those feelings were harder to ignore each time he dragged out to the dance floor or when he would lean in to whisper something to her at dinner. And he was in such a good mood, a big departure from his normal grumpy self. He was all smiles, especially when he was joking around with Murphy.

She tried not to let her heart flutter every time he let his hand rest on her back, and she remembered to breathe when he would grab her hand… but Clarke didn’t trust herself to make it through much more of this without him noticing the way she was basically beaming at him or the way that she was stuttering over her responses. When Bellamy got pulled into a conversation with Murphy’s aunt, Clarke followed Monty and Harper outside… desperate for a few minutes away from Bellamy before she did or said something stupid.

“So,” Monty said, settling down next to Clarke on the bench. “When did you and Blake happen?”

“We are just friends,” Clarke reminded, choosing to ignore the skeptical glances that Monty and Harper shared. “We are.”

“Of course, you are. Why would I ever think you were anything more than friends?” Monty chuckled, and Clarke hit his shoulder.

“Cut them some slack. Both of them have been on the whole ‘I don’t date’ kick for a while now,” Harper said, and Clarke threw her head back in a groan. It was bad enough that she was bombarded with confusing feelings that she could never act on… but now she had her entire friend group cheering it on.

“Harper, look at him,” Monty said, and Clarke turned her head around to look at the window. There was Bellamy Blake, clearly looking for her. “Couldn’t last more than five minutes without his _friend_.” Bellamy spotted them through the window, and Clarke offered him a wave.

“You going to knock it off now?” Clarke snapped as Bellamy started walking toward them.

“Bellamy didn’t get all that defensive when we did this to him, did he?” Monty teased, raising an eyebrow at Harper.

“No, he mostly did that head ducking thing and looked all flustered,” Harper replied.

“Wait, what?” Clarke asked right as the back door swung open. “Hey,” Clarke recovered poorly as Bellamy made his way toward them.

“You guys getting tired of the party?” Bellamy teased, and Clarke glanced back in to see the nearly empty dance floor.

“Yeah, actually Harper and I were about to head home,” Monty explained, and Clarke bit her lip.

“Okay, drive safe,” Bellamy said, and Clarke pushed herself to her feet so she could hug both of them goodbye.

She and Bellamy made their way back inside, falling into a silence that was kind of rare for the night. They only stayed a few more minutes, enough time for Bellamy to say goodbye to the other groomsmen, and then they made their way out to Bellamy’s car.

“You’re acting weird,” he said, and Clarke swallowed. Of course, he had noticed. This was Bellamy. He noticed everything. Clarke was stupid to ever think that he wouldn’t notice that she was about two seconds away from kissing him and screwing everything up.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, as she tried to open the passenger door… but Bellamy hadn’t unlocked it yet. She turned back to look at him, signaling for him to press the button, but instead he just leaned against his car and looked at her.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she lied.

“Clarke.”

“Nothing is going on,” she huffed.

“Tell me,” he said more seriously.

“I can’t,” she blurted out before clenching her eyes shut. But that was the truth. She couldn’t tell him what was wrong. If she told him what was wrong, he would find out how she felt about him. And maybe he would save them both the trouble and say he didn’t think of her that way. But if what everyone else was implying were true, then there was a possibility he would confess that he felt the same way. And she would be so happy… for a while.

One day, she would wake up and realize that she loved him, because how could she not fall in love with him? But she’d never be able to say those words to him. And in the end, she would lose him because of it. It’s what always happened. Bellamy was the kind of person who deserved to be loved, to hear that someone loves him… and he couldn’t get that from her.

“I’m sorry, I just—” she tried to get out before Bellamy crashed his lips onto hers, capturing the rest of her words in his mouth as he cupped her cheek. She should have pushed him away, she should have reminded him that she was cursed, and he should have someone who could actually give him what he deserves… and that would never be her.

But she didn’t push him away. She was too selfish, too desperate for the feeling of his soft lips on hers. When he pressed his body up against hers, trapping her between him and his car, she started tugging at the lapels of his jacket to get him as close as she possibly could.

He was the one to break the kiss but didn’t step away from her. Clarke swallowed, slowly remembering exactly why that wasn’t supposed to happen. “Bellamy, you know—”

“Don’t,” he warned, and her eyes fluttered up to meet his. “Don’t give me that speech.”

“I’m cursed, Bellamy. If this worked out, you would go the rest of your life without hearing me say—”

“I know,” he interrupted, and she threw her head back in frustration. He didn’t get it. He hadn’t seen the kind of toll that knowledge takes on a relationship. “They’re just words.”

“They aren’t just words.”

“Clarke,” he whispered, and she forced herself to meet his eyes. “To me, they are just words.”

She swallowed, taking in the serious expression on his face. She knew he meant that, but she didn’t know how long he would actually mean it. It wasn’t like he loved her yet. He didn’t know how it would feel to say something that would never be returned. She opened her mouth to argue with him, but the words eluded her. She didn’t want to push him away, but she knew that she should.

“Tell me that you don’t want this, and I’ll drop it,” Bellamy said, and Clarke clenched her eyes shut. She should just lie and say that she isn’t interested or that she didn’t feel the same way. That would be the selfless thing here. If she did that, Bellamy wouldn’t be burdened with the curse she accepted. All she had to do was say the words.

But she couldn’t. And when his lips crashed back onto hers, she was so happy she couldn’t say it.

 

* * *

 

“Bell, it’s just me!” Octavia shouted as the front door swung open in his apartment. Bellamy jerked up in his bed, shooting Clarke a panicked look. Neither one of them had told their friends that they had been sleeping together for the past few weeks since they hadn’t really put a label on it. And this was not the way either of them wanted Octavia to find out.

“Fuck,” Bellamy grumbled, falling out of bed as he tried to throw on some clothes.

“Are you not even out of bed yet? You never sleep in,” Octavia grumbled from outside the door. Clarke tugged on her shirt frantically. Bellamy gestured toward his bathroom, and Clarke grabbed her pants as she ran into it.

“I forgot to set my alarm,” he lied, and Clarke quietly shut the bathroom door behind her. She pressed her back against the door, letting out a sigh of relief. Then, she heard Octavia swing his bedroom door open without knocking, and a curse escaped Bellamy’s lips.

“Okay, so I told Lincoln I would pick out a paint color before he got back from his trip. But I didn’t, and he gets back in a few hours,” Octavia explained, and Clarke could hear her walk farther into Bellamy’s room. “I was wondering if you could…”

“Wondering if I could what?” Bellamy asked nervously, and Clarke bit her lip.

“Are those Clarke’s shoes?” Octavia shouted, and Clarke clenched her eyes shut. Fuck, she forgot to grab her shoes.

“What?” Bellamy huffed.

“I was there when she bought them and there is dried paint on them. Are you sleeping with Clarke?” Octavia snapped, and Clarke’s face grew red with embarrassment. Yeah, this was definitely not the way she wanted Octavia to find out. “Oh my God, you are. Is she here?”

With a wince, Clarke slowly opened the bathroom door. “Hey,” Clarke said apologetically, and Octavia smacked Bellamy’s shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” she huffed, and Bellamy threw his head back.

“In his defense, we haven’t told anybody,” Clarke jumped in.

“You were going to be the very first person we told,” Bellamy sighed.

“Okay, this conversation is not over but I feel like I’m interrupting. So, Bell, you will call me later and I’ll yell at you then,” Octavia snapped, before gesturing to Clarke with a finger. “And you owe me at least a drink for lying and saying that you don’t date.”

Clarke opened her mouth to protest, but Bellamy shot her a warning look. “Didn’t you want me to help you with the paint samples?” Bellamy teased as he followed Octavia into the living room. With a groan, Clarke threw herself onto his bed and buried her face in his pillow. That could have gone better, but it also could have gone worse.

“I’m not staying in this apartment a second longer while you are throwing sex eyes at your girlfriend,” Octavia huffed as she opened the front door. Clarke popped her head up, waiting for Bellamy to correct her, but he never did. Instead, she heard the door shut before Bellamy put the dead bolt in.

“You didn’t correct her,” Clarke said when Bellamy walked back in. He bit his lip as he looked at her, as if he was trying to gage if she was upset by that.

“Is that okay?” he asked tentatively, and Clarke swallowed. He was really asking her if it was okay for him to call her his girlfriend.

“Yeah,” Clarke smiled. “Now come here,” she whispered, and he jumped onto the bed beside her with such an adorable grin on his face that Clarke erupted into giggles.

 

* * *

 

Clarke took her lunch out to the front steps of the museum since it was a nice day out, deciding to take this time to relax after a hectic group of field trip tours. Although, any plan to have a nice quiet lunch went out the window as soon as Clarke spotted Octavia jogging up the steps.

“What are you doing here?” Clarke asked, cocking her head to the side.

“It’s my break and I wanted to come talk to you,” Octavia said, and Clarke swallowed nervously. It had been two weeks since the incident at Bellamy’s apartment, two weeks where Clarke had successfully avoided being alone with Octavia. Clarke knew just how protective the Blakes were of each other, and she was not prepared to have Octavia start giving her the “if you hurt my brother” speech just yet.

“Uh, okay. What’s up?” Clarke stuttered out, putting down her sandwich as Octavia plopped down next to her.

“How serious are you and Bellamy?” she got right to the point.

“We just started dating,” Clarke managed to blurt out, although it didn’t feel completely like the truth. They were a little too close for only having been together for this long… a lot of which Clarke contributes to the months that they both pined after each other and pretended that being friends would be enough. “Look, I’m not going to do anything to hurt your brother if that is what this is about,” Clarke huffed. Clarke had been very up front with Bellamy about their relationship, and he knew about her curse. Short of ending things with him, Clarke had done what she could to minimize Bellamy getting hurt if it got to that.

Clarke blinked a few times, realizing that she just thought “if” instead of “when” … wondering when she let herself start thinking that there was a way this could work out. Maybe all those speeches Wells gave her were starting to get to her, or maybe she really did believe Bellamy when he said that he never needed to hear those words…

“No, this isn’t about _him_ getting hurt,” Octavia said, and Clarke’s stomach dropped. “Okay, has Bellamy told you about how he got custody of me when my dad tried to get back in the picture?”

Clarke bit her lip, remembering Octavia vaguely mentioning this custody battle from back when her mom first died. But Bellamy had not once mentioned it, and Clarke had a feeling she knew why. “No, but it’s really not any of my business,” Clarke said quickly, praying that Octavia didn’t go any further. This was something that Bellamy should tell her if he felt comfortable enough to do it, not Octavia.

“No, you need to hear this,” Octavia huffed, and Clarke started raking her mind for other ways to get out of this conversation. “Okay, this might sound crazy, but do you believe in curses?”

“Yeah,” Clarke admitted.

“He’s cursed,” Octavia said with the gravest face she could muster, as if it were the worst thing that could happen to a person. But Clarke knew that if Bellamy accepted his curse to help Octavia, he didn’t regret taking it. He loved his sister, a lot like how Clarke loved Wells. He’d do anything for her.

Clarke listened patiently as Octavia explained how her biological father showed up at her mom’s funeral. Octavia didn’t remember him much, but Bellamy did. Her father was abusive to Aurora, hence why she packed her kids up and moved as far away from him as possible. But Bellamy didn’t have any proof of the abuse, meaning that he had nothing to keep her dad from taking custody away from him.

“It was all but final when something came out about his past, deeming him unfit to be my legal guardian,” Octavia said with the same kind of amazement that people had when they talked about Wells somehow surviving the accident. “I didn’t find out until later what Bellamy did to make that happen.”

“He took a curse to keep you safe,” Clarke whispered, looking down at her hands. She had figured that whatever Bellamy was cursed for had to do with Octavia. “O, you shouldn’t have told me this. Bellamy could have told me whenever he was ready.”

“He was never going to tell you though,” Octavia groaned, and Clarke bit down on her tongue to keep from snapping at her. “This is me warning you because you’re my friend.”

“What are you warning me about?” Clarke huffed. Sure, Clarke didn’t know this story. But she already knew that Bellamy was the kind of person who would do whatever he had to for the people he loved. She could see it with every interaction he had with his friends and his sister. Clarke didn’t need to be warned that Bellamy was a great guy. She already knew that.

“That because of his curse he won’t be a serious boyfriend,” she said, and Clarke furrowed her brows in confusion. The impression Clarke had gotten was that he was almost too serious of a boyfriend. He went into this _knowing_ that Clarke was never going to be able to say she loved him, telling her that he didn’t care or that it didn’t matter to him because they were just words. “He’s only had one girlfriend and he broke up with her because he thought she was about to say she loved him.”

“Wait, what?” Clarke snapped as she rubbed her temples. This wasn’t making any sense. That didn’t sound like Bellamy at all.

“His curse is that he will hear those words from his soulmate only once.” Clarke clenched her eyes shut as that sunk in, but Octavia kept talking. “I just… I needed to tell you so you don’t get too serious about him. I love my brother, I do. But if he starts to think you might say that, he’ll break up with you without any warning. He doesn’t know what that witch meant when she explained his curse. He’s convinced that either he or his soulmate will die if she says she loves him.”

Clarke sat there in silence, trying to process what she just revealed. Bellamy was fine with her never being able to say those words because he needed to never hear them from her. He couldn’t hear them from her. According to his curse, she could die if she did, and according to her curse, he would die if she did. Bellamy found himself someone who could never activate his curse… and Clarke couldn’t help but feel like that was the reason he was drawn to her.

He couldn’t risk dating anyone in case they said those words… but Clarke was safe because she literally couldn’t. Maybe that’s the reason he finally decided to give in and date… because he found a _safe_ person to date.

Just an hour ago, there wasn’t a doubt in Clarke’s mind that Bellamy adored her. But now, she found herself reanalyzing every moment of their friendship and relationship, wondering if he actually started to fall for her on his own or if it was just because she was an easy way to avoid his curse.

She spent the rest of her afternoon going back and forth, knowing deep down that Bellamy did care about her. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he talked to her. No one had ever kissed or held her the way he did. She was almost certain it was real… but she _needed_ to ask him about it, otherwise she would always wonder.

“Hey,” Bellamy shouted to her from the kitchen as she walked in that night, and Clarke sucked in a deep breath.

“Bell,” she said as she stepped into the kitchen. “Octavia stopped by the museum today.”

“Oh?” he mumbled, not taking his eyes off the cucumbers he was chopping up. Clarke bit her lip, bracing herself for what was surely going to erupt into a fight. When she didn’t say anything, Bellamy looked up at her in confusion. After a few seconds of studying her face, his faltered. “What did she say?”

“She wanted to warn me about your curse,” Clarke said, looking down at her feet now.

“Clarke—”

“I just have one question,” she interrupted.

“No, no you do not,” Bellamy said as he crossed over to her.

She winced as he grabbed her hand, hating the words that were about to come out of her mouth. “Is the reason you’re with me just because I am the only person who won’t say those words to you?”

“No,” he said quickly, cupping her face between both his hands to force her to look up at him.

“Then, why didn’t you tell me?” she murmured, feeling her eyes start to tear up. An entire day’s worth of worrying and panicking was starting to take over, no matter how hard she tried to keep a brave face.

“I didn’t want to scare you off,” he whispered, and Clarke furrowed her eyebrows at him.

“What are you talking about? I have a curse too. It’s not like hearing about yours was going to be too much for me,” she snapped.

“That’s not what I thought would scare you off, Clarke,” he said seriously, and Clarke let her hands rest on his chest. “After we became friends and I started having feelings for you, I started to wonder if our curses were somehow connected. I don’t know, but it kind of made sense. If you were the soulmate the witch told me about, then the reason I would only hear the words once is because I would die from your curse.”

Clarke blinked a few times, her heart pounding after hearing the word _soulmate_ slip off his lips. “You think I could be your soulmate?”

“I know you are,” Bellamy blurted out without thinking. Clarke’s lips parted at that confession, and Bellamy slowly realized what he just said. He opened his mouth to recover, but Clarke was already pulling him by his collar to plant a kiss on his lips.

Her tears fell onto his cheeks as she ran her fingers through his curls. Bellamy wrapped his arms tightly around her, pulling her tight against him. It took only minutes for Clarke to drag him back to his bedroom, tugging frantically at his clothes so she could feel all of him.

And when the two of them had calmed down, they both lied naked in bed as Bellamy pressed soft kisses to her shoulder. “Clarke?” he whispered, and she turned her head to look back at his soft smile. “Can I say something to you that you can’t say back?”

Her heart was pounding as she turned all the way to face him. “Yeah,” she whispered as she let her thumb trace over his freckles.

“I love you,” he confessed, and Clarke pulled him in for a slow kiss… desperate to show him that she loved him too, even if she couldn’t say it. If she could, she would shout it. She would chant it over and over again so that he never forgot that she loved him. Bellamy deserved to know how desperately she loved him.

“I’m sorry I can’t say it back,” Clarke murmured against his lips, feeling her eyes start to tear up.

“Say that you don’t love me,” Bellamy said, and Clarke jerked her head back. “If you don’t love me, then you can say that you don’t love me. But if you don’t say that, then I know that you do,” he smirked, and a small giggle escaped her lips. “So, are you going to say that you don’t love me?”

“No. I’m not going to lie to you,” Clarke replied, and his entire face lit up in response. He was grinning ear-to-ear as he peppered her face with kisses. _He knew_. He knew that she loved him.

 

* * *

Over the years, she and Bellamy learned a million other ways to say that they loved each other. Sometimes it was just with a kiss. Sometimes it was saying that he was everything to her. Sometimes it was a confession that he wanted to spend his whole life with her. Sometimes it was saying yes when he asked her to marry him.

Other times, it would be when he caught her smiling at him when he was reading their son a bed time story. Or when he would send her check in texts during the day. Or the way they both held each other’s hands a little too tightly at their daughter’s graduation. Or how she kept up with how much sleep he was getting each night.

They loved each other, even if they couldn’t both say it.

But Clarke did say it to him once.

It wasn’t something they decided to do on a whim. It had been several months since she got the news. The doctors didn’t sugarcoat the situation. Luckily, Clarke had a bit more time. She got to spend more time with their kids and grandkids. Bellamy was a wreck. He would hardly let her out of his sight. So, she probably should have expected what he was about to ask for.

He waited until everyone had gone home for the night and crawled into bed beside Clarke. “I need you to make me a promise,” he whispered, and Clarke narrowed her eyes at him. “Promise me that you’ll say that you love me once.”

“I can’t say that. You know what will happen if I do,” Clarke groaned, and Bellamy slid even closer to her.

“I know,” he said, and Clarke shuddered at the thought. She couldn’t say that to him. It would kill him. “Clarke, I don’t want to outlive you. And I want the last thing I hear to be you saying those words. I just want to hear them once. Only once. That’s all I need.”

They argued about it for weeks. But every time they ended up in the same place. Bellamy wanted to go when Clarke went, and he deserved to hear those beautiful words at least once.

So, right when things took a turn for the worse and Clarke knew she didn’t have another day left in her, they crawled into bed together like they did every night. “Are you sure?” she asked, and he nodded as he pulled her into his chest.

“I love you,” he whispered, before pressing his lips to hers. Tears were falling down both their cheeks as they held each other as closely as they could.

“Bellamy,” she said, knowing this would be the first and last time she said these words to him in their long life together, “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated. As always, you can hit me up on Tumblr or Twitter (@asroarke). Love you guys! Thanks for reading!


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